Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
NOTE: use Perl; is on undef hiatus. You can read content, but you can't post it. More info will be forthcoming forthcomingly.

All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Same Sex Marriage in Portland, Oregon 25 Comments More | Login | Reply /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More | Login | Reply
Loading... please wait.
  • <round of applause>
  • OK, I applause your actions, which are probably the best thing you can do at your scale, etc. but I've something to point out. Being French, I still find weird that priests and ministers are still allowed to marry people. And IMVHO I think one of the roots of the problem is here: in a country without proper separation of church and state, there is some blurring between religion and law, and that's typically what happens in this whole marriage thing. In France, priests can't marry people since the IInd R

    • I will admit that it's a bit of an odd situation. "Legal" marriage in this country has nothing to do with religion (in theory), so the idea that only certain government workers and religious ministers can fill out the paperwork (the ceremony is superfluous from a legal standpoint) is a tad odd. It is, essentially, a contract. Boeing doesn't need a Reverend officiating over their contract signing with their union, though I confess that it would possibly make things more amusing :)

      • First- great job. :-) Along with Schwern [perl.org]'s description, you've given me a good picture of what my friends Bonnie and Sara have been up to- other than being photographed on national news.

        About the odd situation of law and marriage- a different perspective is found among the Quakers. We've [quaker.org] been marrying people without ministers for 300-odd years- because as a faith, we don't have ministers. (Or, more accurately, we don't have laity.) One of the community responsibilities is marrying people. Everybody at

        --

        -DA [coder.com]

  • It is a shame that the Law *is* being broken. I read the Oregon statute and the courts are going to say the man->woman inference is implied. Unfortunately, I think this whole thing is going to piss off the majority of Americans and it will end up as an amendment to the constitution. I hope it doesn't end up like that but I think because people have taken the law into their own hands its going to force it to go that way.
    • Agreed.

      These people have no respect for the rule of law. Civil disobedience has it's place, but only when every other mechanism has been tried. This issue is currently being decided in the courts and legislatures nationwide and now is not the time to disregard the law.

      I don't seriously believe that many of these people even want to be married. I think they just want to participate in destroying a traditional institution that they have been excluded from for reasons of revenge.

      That being said, I do bel

      • Civil disobedience has place when civil rights are being ignored by a governement. I'm not well placed to judge whether it's the case currently in the US, but I'd like to point out that the black people who fought for their most basic civil rights decades ago faced exactly this kind of discriminatory remarks.
        • That's why I said that civil disobedience has it's place. Clearly, the black people's rights were not being addressed by the government at that time and thus, they had the right to take matters into their hands.

          I don't see how my remarks are in any way discriminatory, however.

          • You wrote: I don't see how my remarks are in any way discriminatory, however.

            From dictionary.com [reference.com], the difinition of discriminatory: Marked by or showing prejudice; biased. Head over there and take a look at their definitions of prejudice [reference.com], if you must.

            Give that definition, let's take a look at something you previously wrote:

            I don't seriously believe that many of these people even want to be married. I think they just want to participate in destroying a traditional institution that they have been ex

            • And I obviously can't spell worth a darn.

              s/difinition/definition/;
              s/down their/down there/;
            • Same-sex couples want equal rights (equal rites?)

              What about singles? What about celibates? Why should what I do or do not do with my naughty bits have anything to do with my legal status?

              • Because many of these special rights have no meaning outside of the context of more than one person [perl.org]. Joint health insurance, wrongful death benefits for a surviving partner, domestic violence protection orders and many other special rights are granted free of charge once you get that piece of paper signed.

                Those, and many other rights make no sense in the context of a single person. It's like asking "what color is Wednesday?" (Assuming you're not flying high on acid). Either end discrimination in who

                • Ahh, so because I was born single, I don't deserve to be able to identify another person who should share health insurance with me, who should receive benefits if I die accidentally, or who can make medical decisions for me?

                  • OK, I see what you're asking now. I didn't before. Sorry about that.

                    Because of the way the law works, if I get married, I automatically have those rights conferred on my spouse. If I am not married and I want to have those rights, I frequently have to hire a lawyer, assign power of attorney, make a will, etc. This is not only expensive, but it's more easily challenged in court by relatives or other interested parties who might not approve of my decisions. I think this falls back to my feeling that th

                    • This is my position, too.

                      If so, it seems as if the legal basis for marriage becomes irrelevant and marriage reverts to a religious institution. As such, giving same-sex couples the right to marry would be moot as they could easily find a minister who is willing to officiate at their ceremony the legal concept of marriage could cease to exist.

                      Exactly.
            • A Terry Pratchett reminiscence ?

              • In this article [family.org] a paper by Gay Activists is described [...]
                Would it be your position that none of the gay couples who are now marrying actually have as an agenda to destroy traditional institutions like marriage?

                Citing a Focus on the Family web page, and then challenging someone to prove a negative? That's argumentation barely worthy of a Jack Chick tract. [epsilonminus.com]

      • I don't seriously believe that many of these people even want to be married.

        Based on what evidence?

        I think they just want to participate in destroying a traditional institution...

        Could you give me an example (or two) of exactly *how* the 'traditional instituion' will be destroyed. Thanks.
  • Nice one.
  • Was what you did illegal? If not, good. If so, 'tis a shame. I don't buy the "civil disobedience" argument at all. I don't see this as a clear example of discrimination, firstly: if society decides the purpose of marriage benefits is to encourage and aid an institution that produces children, then certainly there's no discrimination here. However, if the purpose is to encourage and aid cohabitation, conservation of resources, *raising* children, etc., then there are other ways to provide the same benef

    • Was what you did illegal?

      After a fair amount of research, I have to conclude that it was. Regardless of the ambiguous wording of Oregon law, the intent of the law was fairly clear and legal decisions are often based on intent, even if the law is worded as poorly as ours.

      As for the "children" argument, I don't by them. Yes, maybe the Catholic (amongst others) Church dictates that marriage is for procreation, many churches do not and many people do not. While there are plenty of federal and state law

      • After a fair amount of research, I have to conclude that it was. Regardless of the ambiguous wording of Oregon law, the intent of the law was fairly clear and legal decisions are often based on intent, even if the law is worded as poorly as ours.

        Agreed with the latter, though I can't see how you would think the intent of the law from the 1800s would be to allow homosexuals to marry. That seems unreasonable to me. At best -- being as objective as I can -- I'd have to conclude the intent is ambiguous, and

        • Agreed with the latter, though I can't see how you would think the intent of the law from the 1800s would be to allow homosexuals to marry.

          That's only because I wasn't terribly clear. I think the intent was to define marriage as between one man and one woman and that the legislators simply worded the law poorly. Sorry for the confusion.

          Even today, we have areas trying to ban gay people

          Huh?

          Rhea County in Tennessee [commondreams.org]. It was all over the news a few days ago.

          And speaking of weapons and breaking

          • Rhea County in Tennessee. It was all over the news a few days ago.

            Heh. I hadn't heard about it, and am not inclined to care. It's clearly unconstitutional, and couldn't possibly stand.
Stories, comments, journals, and other submissions on use Perl; are Copyright 1998-2006, their respective owners.